“Japan will be severely embarrassed by being dragged to this international court” says Mick McIntyre, Executive Director of Australian based whale conservation group Whales Alive. McIntyre will be attending the court case as an observer.

The case against Japan has been brought by the Australian Government who will argue that Japan’s whaling program in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary breaches international law .

“We all know that Japan’s so called scientific whaling program is a sham and finally we have the law on our side” says McIntyre.

“We expect the judges of the ICJ to agree with the Australian Government that Japan’s whaling contravenes international law.”

“This case against Japan is a once in a generation opportunity to stop this barbaric whaling, which is outdated, inherently cruel and for products that nobody needs.”

The U.S. Navy is prepared to kill more than 1,000 whales and other marine mammals during the next five years of testing and training with dangerous sonar and explosives. Tell Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to direct the Navy to adopt common-sense safeguards right away that will protect marine mammals during routine training without sacrificing our national security!

At 100 feet long, the blue whale is believed to be the largest animal to have ever lived on our planet.

So it’s absolutely horrifying that these gentle giants are being struck and killed by commercial ships off the coast of California — especially because there is a simple life-saving solution!

If the Navy opened the waters around its Pt. Mugu Naval Air Station to commercial traffic, then hundreds of cargo ships, oil tankers and cruise liners could bypass the blue whale’s feeding grounds and be much less likely to strike and kill them.

But so far, the Navy has refused.

Tell the Obama Administration to help save some of the world’s last blue whales by opening Naval waters to commercial traffic.
Fewer than 10,000 of these magnificent creatures survive today. So one death from a ship strike is one too many!

Every summer and fall, blue whales migrate to the California coast to feed on the massive blooms of krill, their favorite food.

Unfortunately, these feeding grounds have been invaded by some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, with massive tankers moving millions of tons of cargo to the busy ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The tragic result? Helpless blue whales are rammed by the giant ships or cut to ribbons by the huge propellers.

Even more mind-boggling, the cost of moving these shipping lanes away from the blue whale’s feeding grounds would be relatively small. The Coast Guard knows they should be moved, and the shipping industry has stated it is willing to do so.

Anglo American Dumps the Pebble Mine

Today Anglo American, a 50 percent partner in the Pebble Limited Partnership, announced that it is withdrawing from Pebble Mine – a giant gold and copper mine proposed at the headwaters of Bristol Bay, Alaska. The London-based mining giant finally recognized what Alaska Natives, Bristol Bay residents, commercial fishermen, sportsmen, lodge owners, chefs, jewelers, EPA scientists, NRDC and others have been saying for years: Pebble Mine poses too great of a risk.

Anglo American Chief Executive Mark Cutifani issued a statement lauding the “rare magnitude and quality” of the Pebble deposit, while also justifying Anglo’s plans to withdraw from the risky venture: “Our focus has been to prioritise capital to projects with the highest value and lowest risks within our portfolio, and reduce the capital required to sustain such projects during the pre-approval phases of development as part of a more effective, value-driven capital allocation model.”

There is no question that Pebble Mine is a bad investment, replete with environmental, economic, operational, reputational, social, regulatory, and legal risks. Mitsubishi Corporation realized it in 2011 when it sold 100% of its interest in the Pebble project. Anglo American realized it only after spending $541 million trying to develop Pebble Mine.

Proposed at the headwaters of the world’s greatest wild salmon fishery, Pebble Mine would threaten the region’s internationally renowned salmon runs. Salmon are the economic, cultural, and ecological linchpin of the region, supporting a $1.5 billion annual commercial fishery that employ 14,000 workers. Salmon also sustain the culture, tradition, and spirituality of native communities that have relied on subsistence fishing for thousands of years, and they are food to a vast array of wildlife, including bears, eagles, seals and whales.

Pitch or frequencyis measured in Hertzand Kilohertz (kHz), while the loudness or amplitudeof sound is measured in Decibels. As amplitude increases, intensity also increases. Intensity is the amount of energy a sound has over an area. The more energy a sound wave has, the higher its amplitude or loudness.

A sound you hear in a large area is more intense if you hear it in a smaller area. In other words, the same sound has greater intensity or is louder in a smaller area or in the area where the sound immediately emanates from. This is because the energy of a particular sound distributed throughout a smaller area means more sound waves per unit of space, compared to the same sound distributed throughout a much bigger area. In other words, in layman’s terms, the further away you are from a sound, the less likely you can hear it.

A whisper is about 10 decibels while thunder is 100 decibels. Normal conversation is around 60 decibels, and an operating lawn mower, 100 decibels loud. The weakest sound that can be heard is measured at 0 decibel. There are such things as “decibel meters” which allow one to measure how loud a sound is.

The Olympics is all about recognising and honouring man’s sporting prowess – running, jumping, swimming, diving and doing just about everything else. Yet there are other games that take place far from the shiny new stadiums and flag-waving crowds. Welcome to the Animal Olympics, where species compete daily in the wild to thrive and survive.Different species have adapted different athletic abilities to succeed in their respective environments, from running fast to chase prey to swimming great distances in search of food and safety.Animals are amazing athletes and their performances in the wild are of often above and beyond Olympic caliber.

65 milion years ago (mya) the Cenozoic Era began in the time-scale of geological units. Each Era is divided into Periods of time, and each Period of the Cenozoic Era is divided into Epochs of time. Please click on the link below for a diagram of the Periods and Epochs in the CenozoicEra, and for important information about the rise of the Mammals. This link below shows that the last Ice Age ended 10,000 years ago and the time period (epoch) since then is called the HoloceneEpoch. There has been a series of “ice ages” over billions of years, with the “Great Ice Age” occurring during the PleistoceneEpoch of the CenozoicEra, 1.8 million to 10,000 years ago.

The dinosaurs had become extinct and now it was the Age of the Mammals, arising in the Palaeocene Epoch of the Cenozoic Era, 65 to 55 mya; with the modern line of human beings (from the genus Homo) developing 1.6 mya to 2 mya. During the Pleistocene Epoch of the Cenozoic Era, there were four completely separate glacial advances in North America. The advances were separated by long intervals of ice withdrawal, sufficient to permit the previously occupied area covered by ice to be reoccupied by plants and animals. Glaciation severely affected life on the earth. Animal and plant life was forced out of vast portions of the land covered by continental ice sheets. Large-scale migrations must have taken place as the ice sheets grew and climatic changes occurred.

Click here to see some wonderful preserved skeletons of some of the “mega-fauna” (large mammals) of the Pleisotcene Epoch (1.8 mya to 10,000 years ago).